As Consumers Mix and Match,
Fashion Industry Starts to Fray

Designers and Retailers Work
To Serve Shoppers Seeking
Their Own Individual Style

By

Teri Agins Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Updated Sept. 8, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

Susannah Brunings and her friends used to dress in Gucci and Prada from head to toe. But now, the 31-year-old computer-software marketer from Mission Viejo, Calif., is more likely to be found in unexpected combinations, such as the $350 embroidered-silk Indian sari, $155 Seven jeans and orange stiletto sandals she was wearing one recent day. "I have created my own style, not what the magazines are telling me to wear," she says.

The idiosyncratic Ms. Brunings and many women like her are beginning to transform the...